Inside Tao News/Chi Flows Naturally:
1. Essay: five reasons why qigong is better for our health than ordinary
exercise for us humans struggling to “stay in shape”. How can qigong be better
if it doesn’t build bulk muscle or tax the heart with an aerobic workout? Taken
from my new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section, which will be posted
within a week.
2. The 2007 Summer Retreat schedule is posted. These are at Dao (Tao) Mountain
in the Catskills, 90 minutes from NYC. Start planning now – these low cost
retreats are fun “learning vacations” and a boost of high energy not to be
missed. Note the 2007 schedule has been compressed into eight weeks (instead of
ten): June 16-Aug. 5. Contact: retreats@healingdao.com or visit
http://www.healingtaoretreats.com/#c.
My personal schedule has also been updated:
http://www.healingdao.com/pages/asheville/index.html
3. Congratulations are in order. Daoist Body Cultivation, ed. Livia Kohn (my
chapter is on sexual alchemy), has received the prestigious Outstanding Academic
Title Award from Choice magazine, the main source for librarians. Only a few
books receive this award every year for academic excellence and pioneering work.
Read my book review and get your copy, or send one to a friend as a gift:
http://www.healingdao.com/blk1.html
4. Thinking of gifts this Winter Solstice season? Consider the gift of glowing
health for family and friends. Give a qigong DVD or homestudy audio-video
course. Some DVDs like Primordial Qigong/Tai Chi for Enlightenment or the Five
Animals/Six Healing Sounds are already in home study packages (Qigong
Fundamentals 1 & 2) that are effectively half price. But everything else is on
sale.
4a. SALE OFFER to Tao News/ Chi Flows Naturally subscribers and their friends:
Starts Tuesday Dec. 5 until Friday midnite, Jan 5, 2007:
Sale price of all my Qigoing DVD’s is $29.95. (35% discount off $45. retail
price), plus s/h. AUDIO CD & DVD PACKAGE prices for Fusion of 5 Elements,
Taoist Sexual Secrets/Healing Love, Dream Practice, and Lesser Kan & Li are
discounted 10% off their web price (note: no further discounts on Qigong
Fundamentals 1-4).
VHS videos are all $19.95 (50% off) plus s/h. AUDIO CASSETTE courses are
discounted 25% off web price while stock lasts. VHS and Cassettes are being
discontinued, except for the Primordial and Fundamentals 1& 2 courses and a few
higher Kan & Li courses. Everything else will be in DVD/CD audio format only in
the future.
To receive discount, please phone the super-efficient Wendy, manager of our new
Office of Satisfaction: 888 999 0555 noon-4 pm Eastern time, or email:
info@healingdao.com. Local numbers: 828-505-1444 (-1044, fax).
4b. For the really unusual gift, give someone the “Tai Chi Dynamic-Sit Sexy Ergo
Ball Chair”.
http://www.healingdao.com/ballchair.html
4c. For the high end special “art” gift, consider a hand-painted calligraphy
infused with Qi by my friend, the qigong artist Wu Zhongxian:
http://www.healingdao.com/calligraphy.html
5. Thanks for all the feedback on our new copper roof. Yes, both sides of the
roof are grounded – via two ten-foot copper rods buried in the ground. We had a
wonderful meditation last saturday, and everyone is invited again on Friday Dec.
22, 7pm-midnite, for the Winter Solstice meditation.
6. Still space in the Dec. 9 -10 Sat/Sun Internal Chi Breathing & Bone Rooting
workshop.
email: winn@healingdao.com.
. Tax-deductible Donation: Support the Tao vs. Black Hole of Government
I give thanks and feel deep gratitude for your interest, support, and good
energy around the healing and spiritual work we are doing through our non-profit
501c3 organization. As the 2006 tax year approaches its end, I’d like to remind
all US citizens that you CAN choose where you want your Federal tax money to go?
and it doesn?t HAVE TO go into the black hole of government spending.
The IRS makes it legal to make large, 100% tax-deductible donations to official,
tax-exempt, non-profit, 501(c)3 organizations like Dao Alchemy Research
Institute (d.b.a. as Healing Tao USA). You can make these donations instead of
paying your federal taxes. Talk to your accountant or financial advisor if this
makes sense for you. It’s a way to put your money to work more effectively.
Donations could include cash, real estate, art, or creative services.
Your donation is a way to make a noble statement and simultaneously ease the
burden of staff costs and ever rising advertising needed to keep the website up
and the summer retreat program happening. I donate many hundreds of hours of
unpaid labor each year to support the vision of Healing Tao USA. My vision is of
a dynamic community of smiling, heart-centered beings, dedicated to the Way of
cultivating our original nature and unfolding each person’s unique creative
potential. My work is to make available the most effective body-centered methods
of self-cultivation.
lf donations don’t make sense for you, please know that your purchases or
attendance on a China Dream Trip also qualify for partial tax deduction – and
are greatly appreciated. Sending you a big smile in advance!
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Dear Souls that are Curious about Good Health,
Question: Why is Qigong (chi kung) better for health than regular exercise or
sports?
Answer:
I think sports and physical exercise is great, it’s one way to enjoy your body
and explore its potential. I?ve tried just about every sport. I am a top skier.
I was a professional white water rafting guide, with 40 trips down the Grand
Canyon. I?ve hiked in many of the world?s most famous mountains. I swim a mile
in the Caribbean ocean every day during my winter retreat. I especially love
outdoor sports, as they put me in direct contact with nature?s energy field.
Sports are totally compatible with qigong. But none of the sports or other forms
of exercise I’ve tried ultimately can compare to the benefits I?ve received from
daily practice of qigong. If I do a sport, I still practice qigong the same day,
as it balances and refreshes me. If possible, I always practice qigong outdoors,
to absorb more natural chi.
Below are five reasons I find qigong to be a superior form of exercise. The same
benefits apply to tai chi, which I consider to be a long martial form of qigong.
But tai chi is longer and thus harder to learn. For this reason I’ve found
qigong delivers faster and deeper results for most people.
1. Qigong is a whole mind-body exercise.
The main difference is that qigong is not just a physical body exercise, it is a
body-mind exercise. The mind could be defined as our ability to shape energy
into thoughts, feelings, sensations, or other perceptual patterns.
When you exercise the full spectrum of your body-mind using qigong, a completely
different experience happens. You begin to shape energy into flowing patterns of
harmony and balance and peace. You connect your body to the sky above and the
earth below, and your heart opens up a vast open creative space inside the body.
If you practice qigong in a group, you begin to experience the ?group heart? of
your fellow practitioners. If you practice alone, it opens a peaceful space in
your heart that is easy and wonderful to share the rest of the day. This whole
body-mind involvement of qigong is also what makes it a perfect complement to
passive sitting meditation.
2. Qigong overcomes our resistance to physical exercise.
Qigong is so much fun, it becomes a ?healthy addiction?. People love being
relaxed while they exercise. Many folks tell me they cannot wait to practice it
each day. Unfortunately, most Western people treat physical exercise as
something that you ?do to your body? or to your muscles or ?to? your heart. They
hate going to gym.
Why do so many people hate physical exercise, and drop it as the first excuse?
Their mind is separated from their body. Hence, there is an unconscious fear and
sometimes loathing of the body. The modern top-heavy mind sees the body like a
difficult and needy child, that cannot really be controlled or satisfied.
Many modern people live in their head, and just visit the lower part of the body
occasionally to get it into shape. They exercise mostly so the head/face will
look good sitting on top of the body. Others can only experience their body
through sex. Then they quickly shift back into their head immediately
afterwards. People engage in sex-ploitation of their own body without realizing
it. It?s much healthier to have a full time relationship between your mind and
your body.
Example: many joggers listen to music as they run in mindless circles around the
block. They are not focused on what their body is experiencing while running.
They ignore the joy of movement or the exhilaration of moving through space.
Instead, they listen to their favorite band because they find their body
incredibly boring to hang out with. Exercise is a chore. They resent having to
work hard, to sweat to get the fat off their flabby muscles. There is no deep
mind-body communication happening during their exercise.
With qigong it?s different. You don?t push the river, you find a gentle rhythm
and you repeat it with slow, relaxed, often circular movements. Different
movements open different energy channels in your body. The process invites to go
deeper. You gradually find the body moves by itself effortlessly, as if
propelled by some invisible energy field. You relax and enjoy a ride on an easy
feeling of flow.
3.Qigong delivers better & quicker health benefits than ordinary exercise.
I could go on for an entire book all the health benefits that come about from
this kind of relaxed movement. About how ONLY gentle circular movements will
stimulate your lymphatic system, which is the backbone of the body-mind?s immune
system. Jogging and aerobics actually shut down the lymphatic-immune system
during vigorous exercise!
Why would fast exercise cause your immune system to shut down? When you go
running, your body assumes that you need to conserve energy. It thinks (in the
deep instinctual brain) that you are running away from a bear chasing you down
for a meal. Your belly-instinct brain doesn?t see your $200. nike running shoes,
it thinks you are in survival mode, so it kicks the adrenaline on and shuts the
immune system. It considers your immune system an optional at that survival
moment.
So vigorous exercise is not optimal for your lymphatic and immune system. It may
do other things for you, and is certainly better than rotting in your chair!
Does your heart need the ?fast? aerobic exercise? According to Chinese medicine,
no. It posits that the heart is already over-worked, and actually needs a
vacation. Qigong gives the heart a vacation by getting the chi meridians and
blood vessels of the entire body to take over the heart job of blood
circulation.
That is why top athletes have low blood pressure ? their circulatory efficiency
is so high that the heart doesn?t need to overwork. Chinese sports athletes
already know that qigong training will give them a secret edge over their
competitors, but they don?t advertise it.
Does science back up the claim that qigong offers superior health benefits?
Please check our the research from the past director of the Stanford Research
Institute on the 3500 science studies proving the health benefits of qigong.
https://healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode2&articleid=40
4. Qigong gives you more energy than you expend practicing it.
You get more energy back from qigong than you put into it. When you do qigong,
you are exploring the natural of perpetual motion. Your body is really a ?free
energy device?. Physicists admit that humans expend more energy than they take
in from food, water, and air. But they cannot answer the mystery as to where the
extra energy comes from.
If you practice qigong regularly, it is like making a really safe, profitable
investment. You get all your invested principle back, plus huge interest. Most
physical ?body-only? exercise result in a net energy loss. People work hard,
they sweat, afterwards they feel pleasantly exhausted. The addiction here is
different ? it is the need to release pent up or stuck energy in the body.
So even this type of physical workout is healthy for you, up to a point. But
consider this: body builders who develop huge muscles often die young of heart
attacks. Why? Because as they age, their heart has to feed blood to all that
muscle, and it gets exhausted early. The big muscles turn to fat, and reduce
efficiency of circulation.
Qigong in my progressive training has you store the extra chi gained in your
bones, tendons, and vital organs ? not in the muscles. These require far less
maintenance and are part of the qigong secret to producing longevity.
5. Qigong is easy, fun, & all ages can practice it anywhere.
You can learn qigong and begin to feel the chi flow within minutes. It?s really
a universal exercise ? it?s super easy to learn, whether you are 8 or 80 years
old. You can practice anywhere, anytime ? indoors or outside, even in a small
apartment space.
With qigong exercise, less is more. Less effort gives better results – the more
relaxed and soft you are, the more the chi can flow through you. Forget the ?no
pain, no gain? exercise theory. When you push the river, you get tired of it
eventually. Ordinary kinds of exercise can make your body strong, but they wear
you out energetically.
With qigong exercises, you can forget the sweaty workout. Stop treating the body
like a dumb sheep that needs to be herded by a head that ?knows? what is best
for the body. Qigong exercise is about appreciating your body-mind, respecting
its intelligence, and giving it love and energy while you are moving it. The
body-mind together keep you young and healthy. Qigong doesn?t push or stress the
body into a hard sweat ? it seeks to release stress from the body.
Wishing you love, flowing chi, and radiant health,
Michael Winn
?Who takes Heaven as his ancestor, Virtue as his home,
the Tao as his door, and who becomes change ? is a Sage.?
? Chuang Tzu, Inner Chapters
“The Tao is very close, but everyone looks far away.
Life is very simple, but everyone seeks difficulty.”
— Taoist Sage, 200 B.C